Aridity-driven shift in biodiversity\u2013soil multifunctionality relationships

Weigang Hu,Muhammad Adnan Akram,Liang Zhang,Chen Hou,Xianghan Liu,Shuran Yao,Rui Xia,Jingli Lu,Jie Xiong ,Heng Huang,Xiaowei Li,Haiyang Gong,Huixia Yang,Yahui Zhang,Bernhard Schmid,Qipeng Chu,Yong Li ,Muhammad Aqeel,Mingfei Ji,Qiajun Du,Qingqing Hou,Yuan Sun,Rui Li,Maohong Wei,Yan Deng,Xiaoting Wang,Chunmei Gong,Jinhui Li,Jianquan Liu,Lizhe An,Jinzhi Ran,Shubin Xie,Renfei Chen,Richard D Bardgett,Fan Li,Xinwei Li,Jin‐Sheng He ,Dongmin Zhao,Abdul Manan,Longwei Dong,Zhiqiang Wang,Youbin Sun ,Jianming Deng

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25641-0

Abstract

Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Both plant and soil microbial diversity have been reported to regulate ecosystem multifunctionality, but how their relative importance varies along environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Here, we relate plant and microbial diversity to soil multifunctionality across 130 dryland sites along a 4,000 km aridity gradient in northern China. Our results show a strong positive association between plant species richness and soil multifunctionality in less arid regions, whereas microbial diversity, in particular of fungi, is positively associated with multifunctionality in more arid regions. This shift in the relationships between plant or microbial diversity and soil multifunctionality occur at an aridity level of ∼0.8, the boundary between semiarid and arid climates, which is predicted to advance geographically ∼28% by the end of the current century. Our study highlights that biodiversity loss of plants and soil microorganisms may have especially strong consequences under low and high aridity conditions, respectively, which calls for climate-specific biodiversity conservation strategies to mitigate the effects of aridification.

Highlights

Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions are context-dependent
Positive effects of soil bacterial and fungal diversity on ecosystem multifunctionality have been reported in grassland, forest, and dryland ecosystems[14,15,22,28], negative effects of soil bacterial and saprophytic fungal richness have been reported in semiarid grassland and subtropical forest, respectively[17,23], whereas neutral effects of soil archaeal and bacterial richness have been reported in grassland and boreal forest[22,28]
A sharp decline in soil multifunctionality was detected at an aridity level of 0.59; this aridity value was lower than or equal to those found for any individual soil functions, indicating that soil multifunctionality was more susceptible to increasing aridity

Summary

Introduction

Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Given that biodiversity loss often occurs across trophic levels[18], a combined assessment of plant and soil microbial diversity is needed to better understand the potential consequences of species loss for ecosystem multifunctionality It is likely, that relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality depend on the environmental context and may change along environmental gradients[12,16,24,25]. Jing et al.[22] reported that regional-scale change in climate could mediate the relationships between plant or soil microbial diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality, the extent to which these relationships vary, and whether their relative strength shifts along environmental gradients, remains largely untested This limits our predictive understanding of the potential ecological consequences of biodiversity change of both the plants and soil microorganisms under different environmental conditions. This knowledge may be of particular importance if areas of conservation priority are to be identified and attempts to alleviate the effects of environmental change are made

Objectives

Methods

Results